As you might imagine, there are teachers at my school who are career educators. I’m not one of them. Now, you could argue that I am; after all, I’ve been teaching English overseas since 2010.

But at my core, I don’t identify as a teacher. I made that mistake years ago, in America, as a Waldorf teacher. Ironically, that experience pushed me to write—seriously. In other words, it gave me a satisfying creative outlet for all the noticing I did.

Paying attention started early in life, around five years old, after my dad died. Being the daughter of an immigrant who wasn’t taught her native tongue also made me good wallflower material. Majoring in anthropology seemed a natural choice—life echoed academic fieldwork. I was a participant as well as an observer.

Not fitting in, or perhaps just feeling that way, and living a semi-nomadic life now seem like a natural path for the girl who learned to listen. Even in teaching, I don’t like to talk.

I hope that sounds absurd.

So, yeah, we can say I teach, because that’s my job, but at the center of my being is someone who pays attention. I was told to do so in high school theatre. Pay attention to how people walk and talk! Then I studied how comedians delivered their lines and used them on my friends. At teacher training: pay attention to your students.

I think this is why I can’t write at coffee shops and crowded places, it’s too much. Good for grabbing snippets of conversations and inspiration if you need it though. It’s why life can feel overwhelming, especially in the classroom, where I’m noticing who’s who’s locked out and who hasn’t quite dropped in.

Nevertheless, paying attention has been the braille of my life, and writing is where I learn to read it. It’s where seemingly random events come into focus. This is where my larder is full, and where I can satisfy needs to nourish and soothe my soul by pulling observations from off the shelf, and craft an essay.

It’s my double identity between bureaucratic emails, Zoom, Google Classroom, and two-tiered authentication. It’s my float through current events.

Simply put, paying attention has transformed how I see the world and myself. Maybe this is why my husband and I have a running joke regarding my true origins ~ When’s the Mother Ship coming to take you back to your planet, Lani? Or maybe writing was never my backseat life after all. Maybe it was simply the language my first life had been looking for.

Yeah, I’m just visiting.

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Buy me a tuktuk ride

“Does anyone speak English there?” my nephew asked.

“Not really,” I said via video call, days before he departed for Thailand—specifically, Mom’s village—for the first time.

Silence.

“Well, what about AC? Is there AC?”

“Not in your room,” I smirked. “There’s AC in the bedroom Mom and I will share, but nowhere else.”

“Does the house have WiFi?”

Sure, I said. There was last time. But as it turned out, two years ago is like a lifetime in Asia, so there was no internet. Instead, he used the neighbor’s ~ with permission, of course.

I tried to anticipate what the trip would be like before I joined them, but I failed on all accounts. I knew there would be bonding time between Donovan and me, but that’s an abstract thought that sits as coldly, and yet as comfortably, as a blinking cursor.

Out of all my nieces and nephews (my brother has five children: two boys and three girls, the youngest of whom is four), Donovan shows the most interest in his Thai side. He wanted to make the journey, and when I was out visiting Tennessee a few years ago, we spoke the most, too.

But this was the two-year-old that I remembered from a family holiday to Austria, who pooped his pants while we were out sightseeing, causing my brother to hail a taxi with him back to the hotel unbeknownst to the rest of us. This was the kid whose arm was in a cast because his older brother pushed him out of the top bunk bed. And I was convinced he was going to be a psychopath when I walked into the hotel room and saw him gleefully tangling his grandma up with a telephone cord.

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When I arrived in Lamphun, D was in dire need of a rescue. He had endured country living with a bunch of geriatrics by watching snakehead fish in the dirty canal behind the house. He leaned heavily on a translation app. There were a couple of day trips, but little else. Both my brother and I had warned it would be boring.

And it was boring, but we tried. He eventually waded into the canal—daily—armed with a jury-rigged fish net. D stared at the murky waters hoping to nab a snakehead. He caught a smaller one.

The humidity was just as oppressive as the fruit flies hovering around the food left out in the living room, the outdoor kitchen, and on the picnic tables in front of my aunt’s beauty salon. The plastic on the seat cushions in the living room stuck to the backs of my legs while Thai TV played in the foreground. Donovan designated one of the toilets “the scary bathroom” due to its all-maroon color scheme.

Notable events were Mom’s family and friends congregating around large vats of kuai tiao and khanom jeen nam ngiao. Meanwhile the main events for D and me were cleaning the concrete fish pots and him finding a toad in his trainers.

If we were in town, we could walk somewhere. Instead, we relied on my cousin or her husband to take us somewhere. Anywhere.

We got along. It was easy to fall into a kind of camaraderie born out of circumstances, more out of culture than of blood. He started by insulting my intelligence, to which I responded in kind. It became our own language then, of barbed nitwittery. We snickered like Beavis and Butt-Head.

He played every Asian stereotype, drank all the sugary drinks, and pushed the limits of decorum through belching and farting. I wasn’t so much interested in being the cool aunt (as I was already familiar with the demeanor of teenage boys at school) as I was in observing these creatures in the wild. It was an opportunity not to be missed.

Yet for days, I’d have vivid nightmares about my mom and Donovan. I’m sure it was my mind trying to make sense of the different dynamics between my 79-year-old mom, me, and my brother’s 18-year-old son. If it was just my mom and me, I know exactly how the visit would have gone because we’ve been doing it for years.

But with Donovan, I had to get out of my familiar groove. I could show him sights that I knew, but I also had to try new things and make an effort. It was very different from showing my husband or entertaining a friend. I was also sharing with my nephew this outsider experience that I’ve endured as an American in my mom’s family. And now he knows where Grandma comes from: the poverty, the world she escaped.

When we laughed the hardest, it was after we discovered my cousin had booked us a hotel in Bangkok that was notoriously haunted. I happened upon this during a Google autofill search. But we weren’t cracking up from hearing that guests saw an apparition reading a book on the bed, or that sobbing could be heard from the bathroom ~ it was the one-liner we came up with: “At least we’re not in Lamphun.”

Oh, sure, it’s not auh-mazing, but it feels fitting to post the last chapter of Misfortune Cookie on my 53rd birthday. I told myself sharing these stories was what I wanted to do before I die. I know—so dramatic—but we all have that something. This was mine.

Next month, my mom and nephew will visit Thailand, and after that vacation has passed, and I’ve had time to soak it in, I might add an epilogue. We’ll see, because as of now, I’m pleased with the thematic thread that runs through both prologue and last chapter.

When I was 52, I’d say, “I’m a full-deck-of-cards years old,” but apparently 53 is where the magic begins. 53 is the age Brits report peak sexiness. Turning 53 has been on my mind, whereas normally, these things don’t capture my attention.

Except 42, because 42 is the answer to everything.

And obviously—money—shit tons of it.

Which is why I created a Support page, so I could give you an easy place to send me that sweet, sweet cash. Now, now, don’t click away, let’s not be hasty. I’m not asking. I’m begging. Well, let’s just hope this isn’t your first read from me because I’m not sure if my humor comes through. Ahem.

Anyway…I’m not sure what’s next. I have some ideas, but I haven’t sat with them long enough. Ideas are not the problem. Time is. OH, and MONEY. MONEYYYY!

For now, though, I’m sitting with the strange satisfaction of finishing something that once felt impossible and messy. But alongside that relief is the familiar urge to move on, to know what’s next, and where I go from here.

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Hope as surrender

Occasionally, I’ll do what norms do and scroll through my phone. Now, I usually regret it, but this last time, I noticed the middle-of-the-night-restless-fright that the news triggered. It also pop-tarted its ugly itch in the morning, acting as a kind of residual negativity that permeated my headspace.

These thoughts were accompanied by feeling nauseous, which I’m sure had to do with the ice cream and chips I ate the night before, possibly the extreme heat we’ve been dealing with, and not anything else. So, I’m kind of glad they were in tandem because the association locked in. Hopefully, I’ve learned my lesson.

As I told Eric, garbage in = garbage out.

Hope as an act of service

When I’m feeling more positive about the world, I feel freer and happier. My students pick up on that. My colleagues, too. I know this, but I seem to consciously forget this. I figure whenever I can counteract the pulse of what the glowbox says, I’m not living in denial, I’m choosing to take control of the moments that make up my life.

Hope as renegotiation

Where I used to struggle with the idea of aging, I’m now in the throes of making peace with my menopausal body. Who knew estrogen did so much! I can’t eat like I used to, I can’t eat certain things anymore, or lose weight as easily. And I certainly can’t bounce back like before. Nevertheless, I’m hopeful I can relearn and discover what my body needs as it transitions. Serenity now!

Hope as a muscle you have to flex

I live with hope, despite the barrage of bullshit. But if I think about what that really means, I realize hope is a lifestyle choice. It cannot be something I only feel when I need it or want it, hope has to be like exercise, a routine that I cultivate so that I feel nourished.

Fear is pervasive, but it also divides. Hope, on the other hand, has depth and scope. It has something to offer. It comes down to trusting what you believe versus what others tell you—and that’s no small feat considering The Age of Emptiness.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, if you want hope in your life, you’ve got to show up for it. In some ways, I live it every time I step into the classroom. Because no matter how shitty of a class I might have had last time, I show up, ready to begin again, to experiment, to let go.

In a recent video, the AI commentator Mo Bitar compared Anthropic’s model rollouts to Apple iPhone launches, where every year they resell you the same product with minor improvements. “Except here,” he adds, “the product is existential dread.”

And we keep falling for it. — Cal Newport

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R E L A X

I could write it on every mirror in the house, as we’ve somehow managed to acquire a few of them. But if I wrote that down, it would remind me of The Shining’s REDRUM and that would have the opposite effect.

Yet, despite these humanizing moments—peaks and valleys, kids, peaks and valleys— I’ve been doing alright. I’ve been trying to balance headspace with heartspace.

You see, after we moved into our new place, I was forced to make some adjustments. For example, I no longer could walk to work, I had to go by tuktuk taxi, which is fine, but that meant losing about 1.5 hours of exercise over the week. So, I added 5 minutes on the rebounder.

Then this led me to discovering that strength-based exercise is very important for menopausal women to counteract declining estrogen levels. As a result, I got heavier weights and changed my exercise routine.

I also learned we need more protein and finally developed a skin-care routine. And I’m looking at this newsletter through my updated pink glasses on my new monitor. It’s funny how one change cascaded into many others.

This is why I chose momentum for this month’s word. Life has been filled with this kind of fine-tuning, improvements, and learning—and I love it because I enjoy taking care of myself.

Such a Taurus, I know.

It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop. —Confucius

It’s tough though. I can feel my mind’s familiar pull toward the dark side, especially with travel coming up and a head full of plans. I waver between stress and trust.

But maybe this is where momentum matters most—not in perfect routines, but in returning, again and again, when I drift. Relax. Adjust. Keep moving.

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Thanks for being here. I always appreciate your thoughts and reflections.

Last month, we moved, and life began again. Belongings were packed, unpacked, and placed around our new space. I’ve had to create new routines and keep a few. I expected change, but I didn’t expect to feel—content.

It’s not that I was always chasing sensation, but a small part of me believed that stationary = stagnant. I no longer feel that way.

Happy Quiet Life remarked on a recent post about my ability to balance drama, hardships, and humor in my memoir. This got me thinking about resilience.

Years of living abroad—adapting to pivots in place, work, and friendship again and again—have given me a kind of turtle-shell resilience, protective but mobile, in the best sense. But I inherited part of it from my mother, who ignited my imagination early and modeled what a wounded warrior looks like: someone who never learned the word quit and somehow kept laughing along the way.

I used to believe humor was my shield, my weapon, my dance to gain attention. Now, I see it as so much more. It’s been a great teacher. Demonstrating how to bend in the wind and crack the ice.

I’ve witnessed the cross-cultural magic it can bring. I studied it like a school subject, looking up at the TV, howling with delight over comedians’ abilities to coax and control the narrative with a wink.

And how could we forget the King and Queen’s fool? Only the fool can dare speak the truth, whereas the court can only cringe and comply. But not everyone listens to the fool because—well, the clue is in the name. Methinks you talk too much ‘ol fool.

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The first month of the year seems to bring with it the pressure to start over and reinvent yourself, which has created a culture of anti-resolutions, intentions, and intensive planning.

I used to write out big dreams and desires, chose a word of the year, join challenges, and while there is nothing wrong with any of that, this year I’ve decided to meditate on seasonal themes. Because maybe January isn’t so much about resets, as it is about doorways and invitations.

During the last few months we’ve been entertaining an offer that involved leaving Cambodia. This life-changing decision permeated our lives from all-consuming to a low level awareness that hovered in the background of daily activities. Then, at Christmas we were finally able to arrive at our decision—to stay.

I was disappointed because there was a lot of hope riding on that move, but at the same time, I was able to finally land, to put both feet on the ground. We made the choice, the choice didn’t make us, and I believe, deep down, that staying made the most sense. I may love taking risks, but I also need to be smarter.

At the same overlapping moment, my friend announced she was returning to Scotland, and would we be interested in her apartment a few blocks away?

Yes, yes, we would.

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So, during our third year back, it’s another apartment. As I say in an upcoming chapter, moving helps me remember my life. Years don’t get the chance to blend into one another. It also helps us declutter and start over without returning to square one.

But don’t get me wrong, I envy the stability of others. I didn’t set out for a semi-nomadic life, but I did set out to enjoy it, to live it as fully as possible, and to have a good ‘ol fashioned adventure in my small way.

Here’s to the pause before stepping through the threshold. I’m excited. I’m ready. I’ve been waiting. Let’s goooo!

What’s going on in your January? How has your relationship changed with new year resolutions?

Seasons Greetings! 🌟

How are you holding up during the most wonderful time of the year? I’m great because I’m on school break (*chef’s kiss*), so I wake up saying things like, “It’s Tuesday!”

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.” — Jorge Luis Borges

For years, I’ve been doing yearly reading roundups, but I thought I’d lean into the gift-giving season and make general book recommendations (from the past few years).

Quick guidelines

• I don’t provide book links ~ folks have their own preferences, whether it’s an indie bookstore or the Amazon empire. 😉 I know you know how to search for these things.

• Generally speaking, I don’t like reading other people’s reviews, so I keep mine pretty minimum. I like the surprise of opening a book and seeing where it goes.

• There should be something for everyone because I like to read a wide variety of genres.

“A little reading is all the therapy you need… until the plot twists ruin your emotional stability.” — Unknown

2025 was the year of the long reads and “stepping outside of comfort zones”. Although, it typically takes me a month to read a book, and I was surprised to discover though StoryGraphs [where I keep track of my reading] that my page count was around the same as last year.

The difficult ones

📚By recommendation, I tackled The Story of the Stone, Volume I: The Golden Days, Chapters 1-26, by Cao Xueqin in January. It’s regarded as a pinnacle of Chinese fiction, and offers a richly detailed portrayal of the rise and fall of the aristocratic Jia family during the 18th century.

It was a challenging because of all the characters, especially on the Kindle, where I couldn’t easily flip around to cast references. But ’s advice on not to get hung up on them helped me power through this behemoth.

📚I had heard that this fantasy series about dragon riders had lines out of bookstores, so I thought I’d give it a try. The Empyrean Series by Rebecca Yarros (I read the first 3, not sure if I’ll read the next two when they come out) is a 1600+ page-turning adventure. But! the sex scenes were so graphic that I started racing through because honestly, this isn’t my thang. I’m more YA innocent-leave-me-to-my-imagination than Adult this-is-how-we-did-it-next kind of person.

Call me a prude.

📚When I used to hang out in bookstores, James A. Michener’s name was everywhere. He’s known for encyclopedic sagas about a place, and this year I finally cracked open one of his tomes. Hawaii has been recommended, and I will get there. But, I decided to go with Colorado (aka Centennial), a state that I spent many years in and that I love. Centennial really is history masquerading as fiction. It was depressing to read over and over again how badly we treated the Native Americans.

But there you go, it was ~1000 pages. I can do hard things.

“Some people say life is the best teacher. I prefer books — fewer pop quizzes.” — Unknown

Gift-giving recommendations

🔖For readers who gravitate towards the tough stuff, I’d recommend The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. It’s a fictionalized memoir of his experiences during the Vietnam War. A masterclass in writing short stories, it’s won several awards, and is considered required reading by many, myself included.

🔖For historical fiction lovers, Here Be Dragons, Welsh Princes #1 by Sharon Kay Penman was a delightfully gripping read. I discovered why the Welsh hate the English!

🔖For something lighthearted but meaningful, check out The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper by Phaedra Patrick ~ “The story follows Arthur Pepper, a 69-year-old widower who lives a rigid, routine-driven life after the death of his wife, Miriam, with whom he shared a 40-year marriage.”

🔖For those who like magic realism, The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo is set in colonial Malaysia, and is simply a great story rich in mythology and folklore.

🔖For those who want something short and quirky, Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata has all the satisfaction of entering convenience stores and checking out something different.

🔖For science fiction lovers, Arkady Martine’s Teixcalaan series is AUH-mazing. “Her background as a Byzantine historian and former apprentice city planner deeply informed the series’ world-building.” She also was “inspired by multiple real-world empires, including the Byzantine Empire, the Aztec Empire, Central Asian steppe empires, and the dynamics of American cultural imperialism.”

🔖 For anyone ~ because every time I’ve recommended this book, everyone says how much they enjoyed it. Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie “reimagines Sophocles’s play Antigone unfolding among British Muslims.”

🔖Just finished Buckeye by Patrick Ryan, and I’d highly recommend it. Buckeye is a slice of American identity through different POVs set in a small town in Ohio during WWII to the end of the Vietnam War.

Well, that’s me sorted. I won’t pick up the memoir chapters until the new year. However, I will be around… Wishing you a wonderful holiday season with all the twinkling lights. xo

Hello friend,

How are you? I’m well, thank you.

Currently obsessed with:

🎶I’d sing along with the birds, if I only knew the words ~ Billy Strings, Gild The Lily

// Maxfield Parrish dropped into my memory recently. Usually I can trace back these things, but not this time. I decorated my college apartment with tapestries (probably from Nepal) and Maxfield Parrish prints.

// This soup 🍲Derek Sarno delivers his usual humor and heart, but specifically with cost in mind. I had most of the ingredients in my kitchen already and was surprised that even though I ate it everyday for dinner, I never tired of it ~ and that’s a pretty big deal for someone who craves variety.

// Speaking of food, did I tell you, I learned that an 🥞American flapjack (a pancake) is not the same as a British flapjack (an oat bar) by way of conversation with my friend Liam. They sell these kind here, and we were discussing our favorite vegan flavors, as teachers do, because there’s not a lot of time between classes to eat!

Funnily, for this season’s Bake Off, they had a Back To School themed episode where they made flapjacks! Naturally, I had to rip open a dark chocolate & ginger in solidarity. THEN, while reading Richard Osman’s latest Thursday Murder Club mystery, what should happen, but 👵Joyce buying two flapjacks for her and Elisabeth…

I know what you’re thinking: it’s sad how desperate Lani wants to be British*…

// Actually, two of my British colleagues told me that I had a very un-American sense of humor—and that is a compliment I will take to the grave. And after I’m dead and rotting, I’m crawling out to give jazz hands. 👐

// Speaking of dance moves! It’s almost Christmas! 🎄which means I got the Jacquie Lawson’s Advent Calendar! [She British, but she found me. My mother-in-law sends me her cards, and then I discovered how my whole life can be taken over in December/January in the most wonderful way. 💌 Drop me your email, and I’ll send you a Jacquie Lawson card!]

*Honestly, I prefer coffee over tea.

This month has been a risk-taking one

In no particular order:

➡️For the hubby’s 60th 🎂 I decided to spring a small surprise lunch party. He REALLY is not this kind of person, so it was a little scary, but, hey, I pulled it off, and he seemed pleased.

➡️Our school’s staff meetings are on Google Meet and downright repetitive, but mandatory. In an effort to spice things up 🌶️ I created Staff Meeting BINGO. If I got caught I had my speech prepared, but we didn’t get caught, did we, precious? So, beta testing is out of the way, and more folks want in. Must be careful from here on out.

“Next slide, please!”

➡️Lastly, I uploaded my first video on Notes! Then I started to overthink what to do next. But then I did another one. I don’t mind being spontaneous, but if you have any ideas, please feel free to let me know!

Happy Thanksgiving to my North American friends, but not the Canada bit because apparently they celebrate it before Halloween. So confusing, but that’s the world for you.

OH, and if you need a show to binge watch, I’d highly recommend The Traitors, which I learned through Deborah here. Honestly, it’s a show I want to go on. I can’t believe it. I’m finally ready for reality TV. 😉

Wishing you nourishment for your body and soul ~ and plenty of mindful moments on the terrain. xo

This TikTok personal development trend is supposed to run from September to December for those who want to “lock in” on goals. However, since I’m not on the platform, I only recently heard about it through Cal Newport’s fantastic newsletter.

It’s actually an interesting flip on the traditional New Year’s resolutions, with the push to lose weight or write that novel rounding out the end of the year, rather than the beginning. For me, this trend arrived at the right time, after our Washington vacation and at the start of another teaching term. So, I was all in.

The first 30 minutes of Cal’s video is about reinventing your life and the remaining part of the video is dedicated to answering questions centering on his book Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World.

Cal breaks down the reinvention into four sections: Discipline, Values, Control, and Vision. Here’s a Reader’s Digest version of it, although, I’d highly recommend listening to him explain his system with generous examples.

• Discipline (2 weeks): Starting point—set up keystone habits, systems, core location or physical artifact of what your plan is…

• Values (4 weeks): Reconnect with your moral intuition, rereading influential works, write your personal code (roadmap for how you approach your life) → creating rituals.

• Control (4 weeks): Multi-scale plan ~ organizing tasks, goals, and activities across different time frames to include household tasks + work.

• Vision (6 weeks): Overhaul a specific area of your life, one small and one large [possibly long-term goal].

The appeal of his plan is I could see how it could really work. This wasn’t a book I needed to read, or a seminar I needed to attend. This is a concrete blueprint of how to make significant changes to my life step by step.

I took notes and immediately started gaining visions of what I wanted to do. My strength lies in Discipline, but my weakness in Control. For the past 15 years living abroad, I’ve accomplished a lot, and I do operate under some kind of work-life balance, but I also go through periods of teaching burnout and deep resentment.

Since I have excellent Discipline and hate being a slave to Time, I organically move through my days getting household chores, lesson planning, and etc. done. Nevertheless, what I’ve discovered is, I very often leave little time for my creative work, the work that nourishes me, the work that I want to do.

Deep work gets pushed aside because there are too many other immediate things to take care of, hence, lesson planning overload & percolating anger.

Again, I still manage to “git ‘er done”, but Cal’s reinvention wrangled me at the right time. I was ready for Control. I needed to block my schedule, but damn it, I wasn’t going to use Google Calendar.

Instead of using another app, I wrote it down in pencil on paper, just as God intended. So, here I am, using my time to write this newsletter before I tackle marking essays. Hallelujah.

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Cal recently shared, “The best advice on the internet for reinventing your life”, and I include this for those who aren’t interested in a full scale four month plan commitment (yet).

Although, I also include this for folks like me who believe this type of content is the bee’s knees over Bethlehem, Beijing, and Buenos Aires. Or Broadway.

It’s strange because I check a lot of boxes when it comes to these types of good habits like “do hard things”, so why reinvention now, what makes us feel content versus wanting to push themselves a little more?

Perhaps it comes from having conversations like this, feeling inspired, and discovering content like Cal’s, which breaks down how to climb that mountain and navigate passes. And of course, sometimes, you’re forced to make a change.

What makes you feel ready to reinvent your life?

I’m not sure how it is for you, but for me, I am my worst enemy. Self-doubt has followed me for as long as I can remember. I blame my Libra Moon Sign—and overthinking.

I also blame exhaustion, as I use nervous sanguine energy to plow through the days. One of the neighbors recently said, “You can’t sit still, can you?”

As a result, I’m experiencing burnout. To be fair, I took on an extra class when a colleague returned home for a family emergency. But I complained heavily to my husband about it, too. How I howled like a baby.

The school term ends tomorrow, so all the testing, planning, and frantic marking has come to its final end. And then, we’re flying the hopefully-friendly skies back to the States for the husband’s family reunion, of sorts.

I can’t wait to sit on a plane and do nothing.

Substack has been waiting at the bottom of the To-Do List. I get something ready and then change my mind. Often, I’m just too knacked to edit and give it that polish that it deserves.

Part of the other issue, if we can call it that, is that I’m not one to hurry and share my thoughts in print. I believe in letting the pot cook, so to speak. Sometimes I get excited about sharing an idea, and then after 24 hours I don’t feel that same urgency. Other times, I talk myself out of it because the world already is filled with voices. Scroll pass me.

Although, I have to remind myself to be kind to little Lani. The world is experiencing great shifts, and I’m no different.

For example, when YouTube got rid of their Trending page (something that I looked through in an effort to keep up with what’s current in the US), I was forced/decided that I had seen enough low-brow content.

And while I am a concerned about YT making it seductively easier to stay in your own virtual bubble, it’s been an opportunity to switch up my routine. Now, I don’t turn on my laptop when I get home in the evenings.

This is just one example of the changes that have been happening in our household. It’s been intense, gentle, and a positive force.

More positivity:

// Philosopher Wes Cecil takes a look at the political upheaval around the world as a sign of shifting values in his 14 minute podcast episode called Death of the Narrative.

// Cal Newport explores What if AI Doesn’t Get Much Better Than This?

// Spinal Tap is back! The Guardian has an exclusive interview here. Reminds me of my future prediction—music saves the world, but maybe it’s music + laughter!

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Wishing you nourishment for your body and soul ~ and plenty of mindful moments on the terrain. xo

P.S.

For those who are following along, the next chapter of Misfortune Cookie Chapter 13 was published in a slightly, but close enough variation last year during the holidays. I hope newer readers will have a look.

There’s a History Channel series called Alone that takes ten survivalists and drops them in remote areas like Patagonia, the Arctic, and this season’s South Africa! to see how long they can survive with limited gear—and I absolutely love it.

Although, the idea of me being on the show is laughable (vegan) because the only thing I’ve ever killed is a roach. (I’d ask my husband to do it anyway.) Annie Oakley I am not. But I have shot arrows before, you know, the ones with the suction cups at the end of them.

Most of the contestants bring fishing hooks, a tarp or two, a knife, bow & arrows, a saw, etc., but if I was on the show I’d bring a door stopper of a book. But they can’t bring books because that would be the perfect way to beguile the lazy hours holed up in their makeshift shelter during a winter storm. Instead, they must be alone with their thoughts.

Yes, it’s strange that I like these kinds of shows and read nonfiction adventure. But I guess if I think about it, I also enjoy watching professional ice-skating and yet, can barely make it around the rink, so perhaps it’s about being overawed by what looks to be the impossible.

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I grew up as a military brat, around military bases, servicemen and women. I’ve been inside an aircraft carrier, tank, submarine, and even flew a cargo plane when I was five years old.

The man who helped raise me spent his 20s in the US Army, and it was GI Joe fascinating to see his equipment. I’ve eaten rations out of green cans and plastic envelopes. I fell in love with poncho liners for their lightweight silky warmth and ease to pack and clean. They were my “blankies,” and at 52 years old, I still have one today.

I thought the deck of cards with Russian words on them, so they could learn Russian while playing Poker or Solitaire, was quite clever. I was enamored with the multi-functionality of military gear and equipment, and the history surrounding them.

As a teen, the novels I adored were the Sunfire series. They weren’t simply stories of young women crushing on the next door neighbor’s son. They were set in history, as in the Alaska wilderness after President Andrew Johnson purchased Alaska from the Russians in 1867. This is how I learned about the hardships of The Oregon Trail, the settlers of Jamestown, the tenacity of the Suffragettes, and how folks mined (and were scammed) for gold during California Goldrush.

With that, may I recommend (in no particular order):

Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing is “The harrowing tale of British explorer Ernest Shackleton’s 1914 attempt to reach the South Pole, [and is] one of the greatest adventure stories of the modern age.”

This was one of those books you read all night long and as fast as possible because it’s so engrossing.

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer is about the the rather mysterious journey of Chris McCandless from leaving his life behind to dying in the Alaskan wilderness.

The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston is about a group of scientists who go looking for the fabled White City or the Lost City of the Monkey God reported to have great wealth tucked in there from Spanish conquest days. It’s a real life Indiana Jones, but without the uplifting musical score, and with real life consequences.

West with the Night by Beryl Markham is an incredibly lush memoir, written so well that some suspected it was written by her husband or another man instead. British-born Markham shares her childhood memories in Kenya, and later her experiences as a horse trainer and bush pilot.

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📚Have you read any of these? Or a nonfiction adventure book you’d like to recommend? Is there a genre you’re surprised you enjoy?

When game designer Jane McGonigal found herself bedridden and depressed after a severe concussion, she came up with a surprising way to recover: turning her healing process into a game. Drawing on scientific research, she created SuperBetter, a resilience-building game.

Essentially, there are four types of resilience: physical, mental, emotional, and social. And for me, her research is not about adding years to my life, so much as adding more quality to my days.

As I share my resilience building habits, I hope you think about what you do for these areas of your life.

1. "Never sitting still for more than an hour at a time."

Whenever I feel blah, I remember, MOVEMENT IS MEDICINE. Arm circles are your friend.

Every day I do Yoga with Kassandra. She has a TON of short videos, morning and evening challenges, and she’s straightforward and accessible.

I also strive to do ~10 minutes on the mini trampoline 3-4 times a week. There are many benefits like improving bone density, flushing the lymphatic system, and improving digestion to name a few.

There should be one in every home.

2. "Tackling tiny goals to boost your willpower."

Goals can be meaningless. Like remembering to switch your ring or bracelet from your left to right hand at 11 am every day. I learned this from my Waldorf Teacher Training.

Rudolf Steiner, the founder of anthroposophy and Waldorf education, believed that the WILL could be consciously trained just like memory or intellect.

This idea also reminds me of doing one pushup a day as a way to start doing pushups. Most people, tell themselves they’re going to do ten, and then fail because ten was too much to start with. But one? Absolutely.

As a teacher, there is no shortage of achievable tasks that I move through. But even in my personal life, I keep up with obligations because I don’t like to procrastinate. I feel rather fortunate that I have a strong will. It’s something the husband and I discuss, why we have it, why others do not. Maybe it was those early years being forced to play the piano!

3. "Regularly achieving the three-to-one positive emotion ratio."

In other words, experiencing at least three positive emotions for every negative one. Looking at photos of baby animals was an example from the TED talk. I like The Dodo channel.

Additionally, I’ve been a subscriber to Good News Network for years because I wanted to counteract the fear-outrage 24/7 news cycle that quite frankly, feels more invasive and pervasive. Just scanning the headlines from GNN newsletter is enough to remind me of good things happening in the world.

Lately, I’ve been really leaning into music as mood booster. This deserves its own newsletter, but I’ll share a couple of new-to-me artists. First, composer and pianist Ludovico Einaudi. I was familiar with a couple of his songs (Experience and Primavera) from this awesome playlist, but I finally decided to check out his other music, and now I’m very much in love.

Malte Marten is a handpan musician. I had never heard of handpan before, but I’m pretty much obsessed with the sound and want to buy one. It’s the kind of music that when my snobby well-rounded music loving husband entered the room, he asked, “What is this?”

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4."Reaching out to one person you care about every single day."

I’m a true INJF, in that, I need my alone time to reboot (otherwise I’m scratching myself from the inside out), but you wouldn’t know it based on how social I am at work.

In fact, when I was WFH, I discovered that it isn’t for me despite needing copious amounts of alone time. I’m a physical person. I give hugs, playful punches, and totally embraced the cheek-kissing-greeting when I lived in Ecuador.

Lastly, I enjoy paying attention to people and places. You don’t need an imagination to be a writer, you just need to look around you. There are stories hidden within each person, behind those trees, and under that rock.

Although, I used to be better about staying in touch, I need to bring that back. Maybe I’ll do just that, now that I’m on term break.

Okay, it’s your turn. How do you fulfill these four resilience types?

Wishing you nourishment for your body and soul ~ and plenty of mindful moments on the terrain. xo

Jared Henderson essentially outlines three main points: how students used to be taught phonics, but then in the 1970s, educational systems (in the West) switched to Whole Language Learning…and it didn’t work.

Secondly, he points to schools not adequately preparing students to read, dissect, and digest reading materials. In other words, we have not prepared students for deep reading, so this is one of the possible reasons why Ivy League schools are seeing this bizarre “I can’t read a book” epidemic.

Lastly, Henderson mentions our phones, and I think that issue is self-explanatory.

My first reaction was to bristle, as in, why are the woes of the world on the shoulders of teachers and schools? But then, I started to think about my own experience as a reader. How was I taught?

I used to tell folks I couldn’t remember learning how to read, but then in recent years I discovered through my mom’s ex (who helped to raise my brother and I) that my mom sent me to an afterschool reading program.

She did this because she couldn’t teach me herself (her English reading skills are remedial). My early primary school years were also greatly effected by my father’s death. But the video made me wonder if I was taught phonics, or whole language learning, or both? Did it really make a difference?

Growing up, I wasn’t read to, nor did I grow up surrounded by children’s books, but reading was modeled. Mom read on the floor, her Thai newspapers fanned out on the carpet, along with her Thai celebrity gossip magazines. Mom’s much younger Army boyfriend, despite his impoverished upbringing, started reading avidly when his house burned down. His seven siblings were separated into different homes, and he ended up with some of his brothers at his grandma’s, who happen to have a wonderful library.

So he read thick paperbacks and when I was a teen, he’d pass the books to me. I also went through my father’s possessions after his passing, and took note of his collection of nonfiction books on engineering, humor, and even the Kama Sutra (no pictures).

But honestly? I started reading out of sheer boredom. Oh sure, I enjoyed school trips to the library. I wasn’t opposed to reading at all, but it wasn’t until I was stuck in a small town in the middle of the desert at the end of my sixth grade year that I entered my first Waldenbooks out of tumbleweed desperation.

And I’ve been an avid reader ever since.

I believe that the reason why “everyone stopped reading” is because no one gets bored anymore. Because if you think about it, endless, mindless entertainment is a bigger brain crusher than we Candy Crush realize. I’m watching this play out as an English teacher of teens in Cambodia. The phone addiction is visceral and heartbreaking.

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“The hands are the visual part of the brain.” — Takao Taniguchi, abacus teacher

If the hands are the visual part of the brain, then what does all this scrolling do? Most languages are read from left to right, so, one could argue, the phone scroll is working at cross purposes, weakening the muscles that make deep comprehension possible. Throughout the years, we’ve heard a lot about attention spans, but have we considered it’s effects on narrative structure?

Reading builds empathy. It strengthens emotional intelligence. And that, my friend, is a very big deal.

Scrolling, by contrast, delivers fragmented, flashy bits of story. Beginnings, middles, and ends? Disrupted. Optional. We aren’t just scrolling through content, we’re scrolling past coherence.

Do you think everyone has stopped reading? Why or why not?

Hello friend!

How are you? I’m feeling recreated, reconfigured, and renewed, baby.

Like magic!

It’s called REST, Lani.

The last time I went home, I went through Mom’s keep-everything-in-case-it’s-important mail, organized her taxes and important paperwork, and essentially helped her declutter. [Why do you have four vacuums in a one bedroom condo?]

But this time? I couldn’t be bothered to do anything—which is a weeeee bit uncharacteristic of me.

The original plan was to read and write, have bit of a self-imposed writers retreat. Even when Mom was working part-time, and all I did was hang around the neighborhood, I couldn’t bring myself to do anything other than a few necessary things. It was madness, I say!

And now I look back at that time of nothingness with real affection and longing. I was safe. I was cared for. I went on walks and sat on the sofa because it was big and comfortable. My most urgent concern was what I was going to eat. In the beginning, I mentally resisted ‘doing nothing’, but by the end, I could have gone another week.

When I returned to Cambodia, I immediately jumped back into teaching, but despite the jetlag, I was gregarious, working the room like a standup comedian, and marveling at my confident devil-may-care way.

The latter was significant because I started the term after it started, other teachers covered for me, so I was feeling some apprehension having never started late before. But I told myself, I got this—and I did, and it felt good to trust myself.

I’m definitely feeling the post-holiday afterglow. Even though, by this point, I’m well into the school term, I feel different. All-around my relationships have improved. I feel closer to my mom. Goals have shifted. My skin even looks better because I started a skincare routine.

Current obsessions

🎶I’m With Her is an American bluegrass/folk band comprising of Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O'Donovan, and Sara Watkins. I fell in love with Sara Watkins when I saw her perform in Durango, Colorado during the 90s. She was playing with her brother, Sean, and Chris Thile in their band Nickel Creek. They were so young!

Prior to this music festival, which exposed me to bluegrass music, I held anything that sounded “country” with ridicule. What I’ve since discovered is the exceptional talent and emotions that run through bluegrass. The storytelling element, humor, and rich beauty often moves me to tears.

Bluegrass music emerged in the 1940s in the Appalachian region, particularly in Kentucky and Tennessee. It draws on the folk traditions of Irish, Scottish, and English settlers who arrived in America in the 1600s, blending their ballads and dance tunes with African American blues and jazz influences to create a string-driven sound.

Anyway, I’m in a bluegrass mood. I just discovered Watchhouse (formally Mandolin Orange), a married couple that has quite the following because as soon you hear them, you’re besotted.

As I write, I’m tearing up listening to songs. This is an amazing performance. Of course, I don’t expect anyone to listen because I know music is incredibly personal. But if you do, I’d really like to hear your take on their second song on the set, “Wolves”. I can’t remember the last time I was this fascinated with lyrics.

With love and gratitude,

// My words of the year are wonder and play, but I’ve decided 2025’s word of the year is OVERDRIVE.

// I like to see what’s trending on YouTube. This is most likely a leftover habit from listening to Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 on the radio, and later, MTV’s Top 20 Video Countdown. What can I say? It’s the cultural anthropologist in me.

// Anyway, I recently saw that this video was trending, “The Internet is No Longer Fun Anymore,” and I thought, YOU THINK?

A little late to have received the memo, but at least you got there, sport.

// The problem isn’t that folks shouldn’t be entitled to their opinion, the problem is we’re in contact with it all. It’s like hearing everyone’s voice in your head, and that, my friend, is a form of insanity.

And to make matters worse, everyone’s (mostly) angry, or outraged, or depressed. It’s not a good look for us, but I understand it’s addictive hold.

// My brother got into an accident. He’s fine though, so let’s get that out of the way. Yes, he was in the crosswalk. Yes, he was walking. Yes, the woman ran over him with both the front and rear wheels. Yes, completely ran over him.

Not. A. Broken. Bone.

//After 10 hours in the hospital, they called him Iron Man. Now, he’s not like back-at-work-hitting-the-gym-fine, more like at-home-recovering-with-pain-meds-legs-elevated-fine. But it’s a miracle. My mom and I believe that Dad protected him, and if you’ve been reading along, you understand the significance behind this.

// Speaking of family, I’m flying back to Hawaii soon. It’s been such a busy term, but part of the reason (besides WORK) is we’ve been more social. No one says on their death bed, “I wish I had spent more time online.” Within all the doomsday prophecies, there’s very little hope or humor to be found on screens, and if we’re truly on borrowed time, then I want to spend it with people. I’m going analogue.

// I catch myself feeling impatient with humans, and then I remember to slow down and be present. I’m with my students, going in earlier to be with my colleagues, and savoring my time with my husband and friends.

// It’s AI, robots, and roaches from here on out, kids. Get busy lovin’ the shit out of life.

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Wishing you nourishment for your body and soul ~ and plenty of mindful moments on the terrain. xo

Can we get metaphysical?

Thank you. Because I’ve been getting strong Matrix-vibes lately. As in, what’s the truth anymore? What is reality?

Of course, I’ll wait for you get a cup of tea.

There’s this idea from multiple traditions* that we each hold a map to guide us through the terrain, but the map is not to be mistaken for the actual terrain itself. To put it another way, we constantly navigate between maps (ideas, models, labels) and the terrain (direct experience, reality as it is).

Now, a map is a useful tool, but attachment to it leads to fun house mirrors. Maps can be inaccurate. They can be read wrong. Terrains can be tricky, too. The more we mistake the map for the terrain, the more we suffer because, after all, reality cannot be wholly reflected or explained through concepts or words.

This uncertainty surrounding what is true or false can be disconcerting, but for me, it feels “normal”. I’m not trying to brag, but something had to come out of the lived experience of your father’s death while you’re on a family vacation when you’re 5 years old.

Perhaps this is what ultimately attracted me to cozy mysteries and majoring in anthropology/archeology. I wanted to dig, discover, uncover, and sleuth out the truth, whatever that may be. But most of all, I wanted to be okay with the unknowning.

*Apparently, this map-versus-terrain thought appears in Western Philosophy, Daoism, Zen Buddhism, as well as Madhyamaka and Huayan Buddhism. [This also reminds me of the hundreds of versions of Cinderella found in cultures around the world!]

So, maps can be many things: class, culture, ways of knowing, political ideologies, religion, but it can never be the terra firma. We should never rely too heavily upon it, but this is easier said than experienced, as those are the limits of language.

In other words (wink, wink), if someone wrote a paragraph about me, is that me?

For the explorers

🗺️Time is a Magpie by at Death & Birds is a gorgeous essay that meanders and aims right through your heart with a sigh.

🗺️A Serenade to The Ghost. by at A Crow At The Beach Is Like A Seagull At A Funeral is filled with incredible imagery, poetry at its finest.

🗺️The Savoring by shares her story about cutting her hair off before chemo and what it means to look strong. It’s powerfully good.

✨ And for those of you who are joining me, I’m taking a short break from MC because I’m integrating new material. For years, I ignored the military correspondence and paperwork regarding my father’s death (because it was painful to look at), but now, I’ve been giving it careful consideration.

There isn’t anything major to edit, actually, but as a teacher, I have other obligations to attend to as well!

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Wishing you nourishment for your body and soul ~ and plenty of mindful moments on the terrain. xo

Oh, calm down. You can like both.

// No, look, I get it. Reading is a time commitment, liking a photo is not.

// As human’s capacities for attention plummets like IQs (think iceberg shearing off into the ocean blue), I’m waiting for a grunt sound to replace the 👍like-emjoi.

// Oddly enough, I remain optimistic about the future. Honestly, I don’t know how you be any other way.

// I mean, what business do I have serializing a memoir with a modestly small amount of subscribers? But what I treasure are the people who show up, read, and thoughtfully comment.

// The chapter on my father was particularly challenging because I have so little information on the Chinese side of family. So it was priceless to get feedback from . Her in-laws experience in China mirror my grandparents. (Yi’s father-in-law cofounded the Nationalists parachute jumping unit of ROC, was also trained in the US, and her mother-in-law married into the military for safety during the civil war.)

// And as I reread some upcoming chapters to get them ready for upload, I realized that I liked what I wrote! I’ve had enough time away from the manuscript to see it with fresh eyes, and this, my friend, is a wonderful feeling.

// Rejection (for whatever reason) in a publishing world obsessed with celebrity and social media influencers had made me second-guess what I’ve written. I was wringing myself inside out, tweaking it here or there, moving and deleting chapters with the ease that the computer affords.

But now, I feel happily content to share it, and it feels good to finally let it breathe and be out. I’m taking the second and next steps to prove to myself that what I’ve written has worth.

// After all, what is it about this online world that has made me feel I need more than a circle of friends? I standby the Note I wrote, “It just takes one appreciative reader to make my day!”

On the menu

🎶 Nick Drake & Artistic Rejection ~ Nick Drake was a musician who was not recognized during his time, and we suspect he took his own life, as he overdosed on antidepressants. He was only 26.

Like Van Gogh, Drake died without an inkling of how popular his art would become. The lesson, in my opinion, is don’t internalize rejection because “success” has less to do with talent and more to do with luck.

📖 After reading, How I Got 96 Subscribers in 2 Years, I started mentally writing this, and my call to action is to unsubscribe from anyone trying to sell me the snake oil of Substack triumph and glory. Right now, I need to be my own gentle cheerleader.

🌱 ’s The Metamorphosis of Growth series ties in rather nicely as she digs into the meaning and the roots of the word grow. I feel smarter after reading her essays!

📖 And sometimes our best intentions end up somewhere else as ’s essay We All Scream for Eye Cream reminds us.

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Thanks for your support. I appreciate you being here. And I hope you are enjoying contentment and bliss outside the online world, xo

Seasons Greetings!

I’m glad you’re here. It means a lot to write to you because the holidays can be a tough time. Heck, life can be a tough time. Good news helps. As does taking it day by day.

This mindset is how I’ve carved out some sanity in a world gone Chiquita bananas. [Luckily, I like bananas.] I’ve come to realize that little moments make up our lives, so focusing on those bite-sized portions of my days helps to create a life to love.

In action, this means a soft pass on overthinking and whinging, but I can’t keep it bottled up like a 2,000 year old genie, so starting the day with typing 500 words has probably been the best mental health habit I’ve started this year.

My words for 2024 were JOY and EXPANSION. Joy felt like a new word, one that seemed excessive, yet attainable. Expansion came across like that undeserving ugly best friend—Growth, that slut, on the lips of too many people. Joy, I’ve discovered, is not just for the holidays, and Expansion, a gentle sidekick.

One of the ways I chose to expand was to hop on this train called Substack. It was definitely experimental, as my essays reflect. I wanted to see what would stick, kind of like when you throw a spaghetti noodle to the wall to see if its done. My newsletters meandered as I became restless, unsure, and unsatisfied with what I was doing here.

I emerge, however, ready to:

• serialize my second memoir, Misfortune Cookie, in 2025

• streamline my content [so it feels more obvious what I’m doing]

• interview creatives on what they have on their desk

Misfortune Cookie is the book I’ve always wanted to write, a love letter to my family, but The Missing Teacher got in the way.

Here’s the quick synopsis: MISFORTUNE COOKIE is about growing up Asian American, immigrant moms, and unconventional adventures in flexibility and resilience in America and abroad. It’s about finding freedom in the fringes and wholeness through stories.

Of course, it can be easy to come up with a plan, and it’s an all together different beast to execute it. Since I’m on vacation, everything I’ve been waiting to do finally has the time and space to run around like a dachshund on espresso [a la Gary Larson].

However, I remain optimistic. What is life without hope! with a dash of audacity!

On the menu

🥦 I’m absolutely chuffed to be learning through a vegan chef on how to be a better cook. Derek Sarno “served as the Senior Global Executive Chef for Whole Foods Market in the USA and was the Director of Plant-Based Innovation for Tesco PLC in the U.K.”

His YouTube channel is filled with funny edits, yet simple moments of him in the kitchen. His video on the best soup really upped my game and has been wonderfully inspiring!

📚I just finished Shy Creatures by Clare Chambers, and it’s probably one of my favorite books from this year. Set in 1930s-1960s England it centers around an art teacher at a psychiatric hospital and a man who had been hidden in a house raised by his elderly aunts.

🖥️ For a clever short essay, Eggs 4 Different Ways, head over to Everyone Else is Taken by . It’s smart, sweet, and unexpected.

🖥️ I also particularly enjoyed Atreyee Gupta’s Retreat and Gather over on Bespoke Traveler for her rich and creamy take on coffee and tea.

🩺 After I completed the latest season of The Great British Bakeoff, I wondered why I had reactivated my Netflix. Then I started watching Call the Midwife, a “series about a group of nurse midwives working in the East End of London in the late 1950s and 1960s” and now I’m content again.

Besides making soups, reading, and writing, we’ve been nesting. I love home improvement projects! Nothing grand, just small things we do to help make the home a more practical and beautiful space to live.

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What have you been up to this winter? 🎁☃️🎉

Here’s hoping you and your family have a warm and wonderful holiday season, xo

My friend Jess was seeing this guy she was super excited about, and we were all thrilled for her, until she found out that he was seeing another woman on the side. In his defense, it sounded like a long distance relationship, and he just hadn’t broken it off since he started dating Jess. The other woman (TOW) might have come out to Thailand to visit him, and that’s how Jess found out. I don’t remember rightly as it was at least a decade ago.

After he was confronted, he profusely apologized, but Jess didn’t know what to do because she really felt that electric connection with him. When she asked ‘what should I do?’ I told her that she shouldn’t give him another chance, but since she was so crestfallen, I said to at least give it some time, take a break.

Like all well-meaning advice, it was ignored, and it came from my own similar heartbreaking experience. I wouldn’t have cared, but our goodbye (she was moving back to America) has haunted me since because I’m forever known as the friend who didn’t support her.

When Jess stopped by my apartment to give me her toaster oven, she had visibly cooled towards me, so I knew. She also couldn’t get out of my apartment fast enough. It was an awkward goodbye. I wanted to yell her name as she walked out and say, “Jess, I don’t care! I just want you to be happy. Be happy!” But instead I was taken aback by her hasty retreat, after all we had been through together.

Today, Jess and her man are married and have a child together.

What I should have remembered was the advice my friend Cindy gave me many moons ago. We were colleagues at a company that managed HOAs (Home owners associations). She was one of those single moms that was stunning, but perpetually looked like she had just rolled out of bed and grabbed the first sweater within arms reach.

Anyway, another colleague, Mari, stopped by our desks (she was always avoiding her manager) to excitedly share her latest idea. I don’t even remember what it was except that it was ridiculous. Cindy was full of confidence though that Mari could do it.

After Mari walked off, I raised my eyebrow at Cindy. To which she replied, “I decided a long time ago that I never wanted to be the person who says you can’t do something. I’d rather be the cheerleader.”

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Recommended reads

📚We Solve Murders by Richard Osman ~ Osman hits it out of the park, yet again, creating loveable characters around that cozy thing we call murder mysteries.

📚 Damsel by is a delightful retelling (adapted by Dan Mazeau’s screenplay) of ‘girl gets offered to dragon to save everyone else’. I couldn’t read it fast enough.

📚Poem of the Month #14 by is a cheeky and clever example of when words pour onto the page like magic.

📺 I reactivated Netflix so my husband could watch Jake Paul vs Mike Tyson, but I knew it was about time for The Great British Bake Off, and I was right! I LOVE this show.

📺 You Can’t Unhear This is a YT channel dedicated to The Beatles. Raymond Schillinger produces these amazing mini-documentaries on the backstories of their songs.

Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate it. I’m going to get an air fryer. I can already taste those potatoes and tofu bites! xo